LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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:..from... 
M. E. WADSWORTH. 

MICHIGAN COLLECE OF MINES, 



HOUGHTON, MICHIGAN 



THE 



Elective System 



IN 



Engineering Colleges. 



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BY 



M. E. WADSWORTH, Ph.D., 

dleectoe of the michigan mining school, 
Houghton, Mich. 



[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society foe the Peomotion of 
Engineeeing Education, Buffalo Meeting, 1896.] 









\ 




1898 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM IN ENGINEERING 
COLLEGES. 

BY M. EDWARD WADSWORTH. 

Director of the Michigan Mining School, Houghton, Mich. 

It was my privilege to present, for your considera- 
tion last year, a paper on the elective system as adopted 
in the Michigan Mining School ; it is now my purpose 
to continue this subject by presenting some further 
particulars, and pointing out the conditions under 
which this system might with great advantage be in- 
troduced into other engineering colleges. 

To establish a clear understanding between the audi- 
tor and the author, it is desirable to divide the matter 
up into heads which are regarded as cardinal points 
in the argument. 

I. Engineering is a Learned Profession. 
This will probably be admitted without discussion ; 
hence it clearly follows that studies forming an inte- 
gral part of the course in all engineering colleges, are 
just as truly professional studies as are those given in 
schools devoted to Theology, Law and Medicine. Those 
who follow the last named professions have certainly 
not excelled the engineer, if they have equalled him, 
in the task of promoting the happiness, welfare and 
morality of mankind ; nor can it be proven that suc- 
cess in either of these professions requires deeper study, 
higher intellect, more experience with men and things, 
or better balanced judgment, than is needed for the 
successful presentation of engineering projects. Why, 

(3) 



4 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

then, does the public at large hold the engineering 
profession inferior to the others just mentioned ? The 
answer is because we ourselves have set them the ex- 
ample, and they accept the engineer at our valuation. 
Educators have, unconsciously perhaps, but none the 
less truly, proclaimed their own conviction of the in- 
feriority of an engineer's mental needs and equipment 
by the introduction and continued retention of 

II. ]STon-Essential Studies in Engineering Courses. 
This mistake naturally arose from the fact that the 
early engineering schools or courses were planned in 
the now clearly erroneous assumption that their train- 
ing must include a so-called liberal education, or else 
must prove itself to be the equivalent of the classical 
courses then in vogue. Further, most of these early 
engineering courses were grafted into older institutions, 
under the control of a literary or classical faculty ; 
men whose very training and success in their chosen 
lines disqualified them to perceive that the study of 
engineering, if properly conducted, affords just as rigid, 
logical and powerful a mental training, as can be ob- 
tained through the study of any other subjects what- 
ever. Nor has the day yet passed when men can be 
found who strenuously maintain that such utilitarian 
studies tend to warp and narrow the intellect ; and in 
their laudable efforts to overcome an imaginary evil, 
they persist in injecting into engineering courses such 
subjects as Christian Evidences, British Essayists, His- 
tory of English Literature, Ethics, Hygiene, Greek, 
etc. That these subjects are worthy of study and af- 
ford valuable educational training is freely conceded ; 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 5 

that they excel engineering subjects as tools for 
sharpening the intellect, or that they have the slightest 
bearing upon the professional training of an engineer, 
or any legitimate place in an engineering course, is 
emphatically denied. If the engineering faculty deems 
a knowledge of such subjects essential, it should de- 
mand it as an entrance requirement of the engineering 
college. To include them as a part of a technical 
course is as illogical and unseemly as to demand that 
law students pursue a course on pumps, or medical 
students one on roof-trusses, or theological students one 
on ther mo-dynamics. The engineering faculty, and 
they alone, are the parties competent to formulate the 
list of studies for engineering students, and their de- 
cision in such matters must be final, if engineering 
courses are to be freed from driftwood and barnacles. 

Ill, The Natural Sequence of Studies must be 

Observed. 

It is objected by many (1) that under the elective 
system the student will receive only a disorganized 
course, and (2) he will finally graduate with a training 
which is insufficient, because it lacks both depth and 
comprehensiveness. Neither objection is sound, if the 
course is in competent hands. The professor of each 
branch unquestionably knows what subjects a student 
must have mastered in order to profit from his own 
instruction ; hence, if these are rigidly demanded, his 
students must necessarily have received a systematic 
and thorough training in everything having a real 
bearing on any work they elect to take up. Strict ob- 
servance of the sequence of studies will, with mathe- 



6 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

matical certainty, force each student to go thoroughly 
over every subject preparatory to every other subject 
elected ; hence a disorganized course becomes impossi- 
ble. It thus appears that, by this system, depth is not 
sacrificed, but rather increased. 

Lack of comprehensiveness is easily and effectively 
guarded against, by demanding for graduation as many 
courses as a good student can successfully carry in the 
time usually available for a college course. Indeed, 
if the natural sequence of studies be rigidly observed, 
it is advantageous and perfectly feasible to throw down 
the artificial barriers that have grown up between the 
different branches of engineering, and thereby allow 
the students to enter upon a general engineering train- 
ing, without any sacrifice of thorough work, or any 
friction between various departments. Students can 
select courses in harmony with their dispositions and 
abilities ; the differentiation will take place naturally. 
While the degree will not mean that all have taken the 
same studies, it will mean that every study has been 
prosecuted with success (which is never the case with a 
rigid or optional system). Further, it will mean that 
the student has received a better training for his life 
work than can be given under any rigid or optional 
system. Quality, not quantity, is the distinguishing 
feature of this plan. 

There is no reason whatever why the elective system 
should be confined to engineering colleges alone 
among professional institutions. If the sequence of 
studies, which is to the elective system what the key- 
stone is to an arch, is rigidly observed, the system can 
with advantage be introduced into Law, Medical, The- 
ological or other professional colleges. 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 7 

IV. The Elective System clearly shows up In- 
ferior Teaching, Superfluous Subjects and 
Incompetent Professors. 

As each professor rigidly demands proficiency in all 
branches preparatory to his subjects, every student in 
a class must in a measure serve as an exponent of the 
ability, thoroughness or honesty of such other pro- 
fessors as have had charge of his previous studies. 
Any evidence of general inferiority in training in any 
one subject is quickly detected, and the remedy should 
be promptly applied. 

Everyone who has had any experience under the 
rigid system knows fully that the range and nature of 
subjects in such courses are so broad that no pupil is 
endowed with sufficient talent to excel in all these 
studies, while the majority of students attain only a 
medium standing in various subjects. Excellence in 
some branches is therefore considered to atone for de- 
ficiency in others, and the student is passed. Such a 
procedure is neither necessary nor permissible under 
the elective system, and if resorted to cannot fail to 
expose the instructor responsible for it. 

Should a professor introduce courses foreign to the 
work of the school, the fact is quickly made apparent, 
because no other professor prescribes such courses as 
preparatory to his own, nor do the students elect them. 
Hence, this system does away completely with all 
padded courses, incompetent instruction, or irrelevant 
matters given merely to fill in a certain amount of 
time. It makes such instruction serve as a check on 
the proficiency of the others, produces a coordinate 
system of studies, and renders possible educational 



8 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

results which under the old systems would demand a 
much larger faculty. 

V. The Elective System is the only one which 
can make Full Provision for the Differ- 
ences in Temperament, Taste and Tal- 
ents, WHICH MUST ALWAYS EXIST BE- 
TWEEN the Various Members 
of the Student Body. 

The province of an educational course is to develop 
and sharpen the intellect ; it cannot create brains, nor 
can it by any method whatever eliminate those dif- 
ferences in men which are implanted in them by the 
Author of Nature. It is difficult to understand why 
the attempt should be made to perpetuate an educa- 
tional bed of Procrustes ; for the writer maintains that 
this very thing is attempted when, contrary to the 
teachings of Nature, it is insisted that students be 
divided up into arbitrary classes, every member of 
which must be forced to go through exactly the same 
scheme of studies without reference to his natural 
tastes and abilities. The results of this procedure are 
too well known to need further comment here. 

Under the elective system the student selects that 
work for which he has been properly endowed by 
nature ; he takes far greater interest in it, and the re- 
sults are deep and permanent. So marked is this 
that no instructor in the Michigan Mining School now 
hesitates to demand of his men far higher and better 
work than even the most sanguine could ever hope to 
get under the old rigid system. Even if the elective 
system does demand higher work in each branch, and 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM 9 

a more proficient preparation for each study, the stu- 
dent himself readily sees the object and justice of each 
requirement, and cheerfully accepts an obligation 
which carries with it freedom in choice of studies and 
avoidance of those non-essential. All this acts like 
oil upon the machinery, and enables the product to be 
turned out with little noise, friction and wear and 
tear. 

It is frequently urged that a student is not com- 
petent to draw up a proper list of electives. If this 
statement be true, does it not carry with it the inevi- 
table conclusion that he is even less able to select his 
studies for four years, before he has had even a day's 
experience in the course? Is not this exactly what 
he is required to do, when he is held to a rigid or 
optional system? 

But experience shows that this statement has no 
basis in fact. The natural sequence of studies guides 
the pupil when making his selection, and, assisted by 
advice from his teachers, which is always freely given, 
he rarely goes astray, unless his abilities and tastes are 
misjudged. This rarely happens and the mistake is 
easily remedied. No such means of rectifying even 
slight mistakes exists under a rigid or optional system. 
It is necessary to take the " system " and take all of it, 
or to take nothing. It may not be amiss to call atten- 
tion to an exactly parallel case in actual engineering 
practice. Those engaged in electrical work know that 
a comparatively short time ago every electrical plant, 
from dynamo to lamps, was a representation of some 
" system," and it is likewise known that not one of 
those systems was free from many defects in details. 



10 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

To-day all this is changed. An electrical plant may 
represent the product of a dozen or more different 
makers or "systems," because each part has been 
selected solely on its merits for the particular purpose 
in view. It represents one case of the beneficient 
workings of the elective system in the practical affairs 
of life. 

Under the rigid system, a student who finds that 
he has misjudged his abilities must either struggle 
through in some way, thereby building for his future 
a structure which is rickety and valueless, or he must 
quit the course altogether, receiving, as a reward for 
his work up to date, only a practically worthless foun- 
dation for a mental structure which will never be com- 
pleted. In the case of a similar mistake under the 
elective system, the student may indeed have to 
change some of the lines of the edifice, but little of the 
material is wasted, since it can nearly all be used again 
in a new structures designed with a better knowledge 
of his capacity and needs. 

Since engineering is largely a matter of economics, 
is it not wise to have the student make the first appli- 
cation of this principle when expending his own energy 
and time ? 

VI. Certain Conditions are Essential if the Elec- 
tive System is to be a Success. 
It must be clearly recognized that every educational 
institution has its individual peculiarities ; hence be- 
fore undertaking the introduction of a new system, or 
a modification of an old one, every school must make 
an exhaustive inquiry to determine the relations be- 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 11 

tween the proposed course and its environment, con- 
stituency, faculty, trustees, equipment, object, etc. 
That scheme which is most in harmony with these 
should be adopted, and in determining which one 
most nearly meets the required conditions, nothing is 
more necessary than a liberal use of that very rare 
commodity, common sense. 

It is surely unnecessary, when addressing a body of 
engineering educators, to point out the uselessness of 
mere copyists or servile imitators ; temporary success 
may crown their efforts in some cases, but not in one 
like this, because in every problem the requirements 
are so diverse. In every case the scheme must be 
worked out anew, in every detail, from the very foun- 
dation. 

If the writer were asked whether he would intro- 
duce into any other school in America the elective 
system as now adopted in the Michigan Mining School, 
he could conscientiouslv give but one answer — most 
emphatically, " No." The reason for this is that, while 
the system seems perfectly in harmony with all its 
needs, this school is unique in its nature, and its coun- 
terpart is not to be found elsewhere in this or any 
other country. While its system and methods are the 
proper ones for this school because they were specially 
designed to answer its wants, they will no more meet 
perfectly the diverse necessities of other schools, than 
will one prescription cure every disease. 

Notwithstanding this, it is firmly believed that the 
logic of the system is perfectly sound, and contains 
more largely than any other the elements of success 
for any school, if its details are carefully and consci- 



12 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

entiously worked out so as to meet the peculiar needs 
of each institution. It seems impossible for any edu- 
cator to study exhaustively the history of education 
and the spirit and needs of our own time, and then 
fail to draw the conclusion as stated to the Society last 
year, that the elective system is the coming system, 
and that sooner or later it will find its way into every 
institution of higher learning in the land. 

Every educational scheme, and the elective system 
more than any other, demands for success that schools 
be conducted on sound business principles, the most 
important of which are here mainly condensed from 
the writer's first " Report to the Board of Control of 
the Michigan Mining School/'* The governing board 
must be composed of experienced, able, judicious and 
conscientious men ; they need not of necessity be edu- 
cators or engineers, but they should have the wisdom 
to perceive that the successful direction of a higher 
educational institution requires experience and ability 
on a par with that demanded in any other business 
or profession. They must realize that no success can 
crown their efforts unless they clearly understand that 
their duty consists entirely in formulating the objects 
of the institution, providing the means to reach those 
objects, choosing an able and discreet Director or Pres- 
ident, and seeing that he attends to his duties. Assump- 
tion of any other power is mathematically certain to 
cause friction and throw painful obstacles in the way 
of progress. 

It is clearly evident that a board will be more ex- 
cellent in proportion as its members are graduates of 

* Pp. 70-80. 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 13 

higher institutions of learning, and if possible, one 
similar to that over which they are presiding. 

The success of the institution depends largely upon 
the chief executive officer and the faithfulness with 
which he is supported by the board and faculty. The 
president need not of necessity be an engineer, but it 
is absolutely indispensable that he be an able and ex- 
perienced educator, a man of broad gauge, liberal spirit, 
unbounded energy, perseverance and firmness. To 
him should be left, without any interference whatever, 
the carrying out of the plans formulated by the board, 
and he should be held strictly accountable for results. 
Nothing short of incompetence should be deemed a 
sufficient reason for interfering with his plans. 

The president must make a study of the institution 
as a whole ; formulate the results to be reached by 
each official of the school in order to carry out the gen- 
eral scheme ; see that these results are obtained ; be 
empowered to discharge, without recourse to others, 
any official found to be incompetent. He must allow 
each of his associate officers full liberty to reach in his 
own way the results demanded of him, rigidly abstain 
from interfering with his work, and aid him whenever 
possible. With a suitable president, competent faculty 
and close adherence to these methods, it is possible to 
introduce an elective system which will meet the needs 
of the student and every live professor, and show up 
incompetents. It will force the removal of that kind 
of driftwood which lumbers up so many of our edu- 
cational institutions, simply because the president is 
not granted the proper authority to handle such ma- 
terial and lacks the backbone to demand its removal 



14 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

by the board. Unless someone oversees the instruc- 
tors and is empowered to remove incompetents, suc- 
cess will not be likely to crown any scheme, and least 
of all the elective system. 

VII. The Advantages of the Elective System. 
They may be briefly enumerated as follows : 

(a) It lightens the labor of the instructors, i. c, re- 
moves much of the drudgery, makes the work far more 
a labor of love, and enables each one to give as ex- 
tended a course in his department as he wishes, with- 
out interfering with another professor. 

(b) It greatly reduces the friction between faculty 
and students, almost does away with faculty meetings, 
and renders the necessary regulations few in number. 

(c) It renders examinations almost unnecessary, 
grades the student by his daily work, removes the pad- 
ding of courses, shows up inefficient teachers, and 
allows the professors and the institution to get rid of 
incompetent pupils with almost no friction. 

(d) It results in better and higher work in each 
subject, and develops the best that is in each student. 

(c) It is more economical, both in money and time, 
than either the required or optional systems, i. c, a 
smaller faculty accomplishes the same results. 

(J) It enables an institution to keep pace with the 
rapid development of the various branches of engi- 
neering, without the introduction of new faculties and 
new degrees with their attendant evils. 

(<r/) It serves as a safety valve for the students' pent 
up energies, and almost does away with class rebel- 
lions, especially those due to some particularly obnox- 

(5) 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 15 

ious professor, or to the suspension of some popular 
student. 

(h) It does away with the practice of hazing and 
most of the other disgraceful customs of students in 
educational institutions ; it renders the student more 
manly, and in a professional school allows a man to 
attend to athletics and his studies, without that de- 
moralizing sacrifice of truth so fearfully prevalent. 

(i) It proclaims to the public, and with perfect 
truthfulness, that not only has the student "gone 
through' ' certain studies to obtain a degree, but that 
each of those studies has "gone through" him; in 
other words, that no student has been allowed to slide 
through some studies in which he was weak, because 
there were others in which he was proficient ; nor has 
he been graduated simply because of his excellence in 
athletics. 

(j) It unites into one harmonious whole the 
studies that are usually classed as undergraduate with 
those that are called graduate, and leads the student 
to consider them all as desiderata for his work. It 
broadens his field of view, inclines him to pursue 
further study, and diminishes his tendency to contract 
the megacephalous disease. 

VIII. Experience in the Use of the Elective 
System at the Michigan Mining School. 
"When the writer assumed the position of Director 
of the Michigan Mining School, nine years ago, the in- 
stitution was in its infancy, and no systematic course 
of instruction had been laid out. The rigid system 
usual in engineering schools was the only one then 



16 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

available, and it was accordingly introduced. The rapid 
development of the school soon pushed this system to 
its ultimate results, namely, the wishes of each mem- 
ber of the faculty as to the work he thought should 
be given in his department were gratified. There re- 
sulted, in consequence, an engineering course which 
could be successfully coped with, only by one excep- 
tionably able both mentally and bodily. Seven to 
nine hours daily were needed in the class-room and 
laboratory, and all preparation for this work had to be 
done in outside hours. 

Every instructor realized that the system was crush- 
ing under its own weight, and that prompt relief was 
imperatively necessary. When casting about for a 
solution of the long foreseen difficulty, the Di- 
rector, among other things, interviewed each member 
of the faculty, separately, as to his views on the 
desirability and practicability of an elective system. 
He properly considered that such views would be more 
than usually valuable, since the faculty then contained 
men who were not only experienced in the methods 
and systems used in schools in Germany and in the 
Universities of Harvard, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, 
Ohio and Georgetown ; Colby and Bowdoin Colleges ; 
and the Michigan Agricultural College ; but they were 
also familiar with the methods employed in Columbia, 
the University of Michigan, the Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology, and in most of the other leading 
schools of the country. The consensus of opinion was 
that such a system, while advantageous in a literary 
institution, presented insurmountable obstacles to its 
introduction in a technical institution like the Michi- 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 17 

gan Mining School. The Director, however, saw no 
other solution for the difficulties then encompassing 
the course of study, and, notwithstanding the discour- 
aging outlook, determined to test the practicability of 
laying out a suitable scheme ; from time to time he 
consulted each instructor as to his wishes in all mat- 
ters relating to his department. After several months' 
labor the details of the plan were finally worked out, 
obstacles surmounted, conflicting interests harmonized, 
and the completed work submitted to the faculty and 
the board. It was promptly and unanimously adopted 
by both bodies, and has proven to be the greatest single 
advance the Michigan Mining School has ever made. 

The faculty meetings have been reduced from one 
or more weekly to five in forty-five weeks, and, unless 
some emergency arises, one or two meetings a year 
will in the future be all that will be necessary to trans- 
act the business that is required of the faculty as a 
body. 

The system has also brought about a simplification 
of the other work and enables it to be rapidly done, 
because the Director is charged with the duties that 
usually devolve upon a faculty, and because each pro- 
fessor has absolute control over his department and 
the students in his classes. The professors in charge 
of departments are responsible to the Director, while 
each of the other instructors is directly responsible to 
the head of the department with which he is connected. 

The regulations of the school have been greatly re- 
duced in number, and so arranged that the student 
himself is specially interested in seeing that they are 
observed, since if they are not, his own act takes him 



18 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

out of the institution and closes the door behind him, 
in most cases without the intervention of the faculty 
or Director. ' Everyone who has debated long hours 
over the case of some student, whether it was "to 
be or not to be/' can realize what a relief such au- 
tomatic action is for a long suffering faculty. These 
changes have all grown naturally out of the elective 
system, with the result that the Michigan Mining 
School has had one of the pleasantest, most profitable 
and harmonious years it has ever experienced, although 
it has never developed enough disturbance in its his- 
tory for the newspapers to take up its discussion. Not 
a single professor or student desires to, or would go 
back to the old system and while further experience 
will undoubtedly indicate various modifications of de- 
tails, it can certainly be considered at this time that 
the elective system is an unqualified success. 

Discussion. 

Professor DeYolson Wood wrote that he thought 
elective studies in engineering courses are, as a rule, 
demoralizing, that they lower the standard of mental 
discipline, are costly to the institution, and are un- 
necessary. This is no reflection upon an institution 
which can equip and maintain different courses, which 
courses, it is presumed, are elective. As there are ex- 
ceptions to all rules, so in this case the Michigan Min- 
ing School may have found advantages even if it has 
not yet discovered disadvantages. 

A graduate, after years of professional practice, said, 
"A student should understand at the outset that he is 
to pursue any study that is required of him ; for he 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 19 

may find that the first thing he will have to use when 
he leaves college is that which he most despised when 
in it." Lay greater emphasis on the " how" and on 
the "what" is studied. One straight, solid, thorough 
course without electives will make stronger men than 
one weakened by electives. 

Professor J. Galbraith said that he had listened 
with great interest to the paper. The difficulties men- 
tioned in connection with the ordinary system are 
more or less acknowledged by all. The great amount 
of work required of a student under this system, and 
the undue proportion which the dry and apparently 
useless work bears to that wilich is interesting, make 
the curriculum to some extent repulsive. The desire 
of individual professors to aggrandize their own de- 
partments and to arrange the curriculum to suit their 
special requirements may in some cases produce a bad 
effect. The speaker had hoped that the paper would 
make clear a method of avoiding some of these diffi- 
culties, but was obliged to confess that he did not see 
the solution in what had been said. It appeared to 
him that the only persons who are qualified to lay down 
a curriculum in the professional courses of a technical 
college are the members of the faculty, and they re- 
quire to bring their combined experience and knowl- 
edge to bear upon the problem. The student certainly 
is not in a fit position to select the various subjects 
leading to a professional degree, and decide the order 
in which they are to be taken. Of course, if an in- 
stitution decides to give its degree in one subject of 
study as distinguished from a professional department, 
it would be quite a proper course for the student to 



20 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

consult with the professor of that subject as to the 
preliminary studies that might be necessary, and to 
follow his advice. 

Even this is very far from being an elective system. 
The professor makes practically a fixed course; just as 
in the case of graduation in a professional department 
the faculty lay down a fixed course, and where the 
choice of the student comes in after selecting his sub- 
ject of graduation is not very clear. No practical 
method can be devised of making the individual 
studies in a professional course elective if the degree 
is to be worth anything, and the speaker did not think 
that the term " elective system " ought to be used 
where this is not done. 

Professor Wadsworth stated that there had not been 
the slightest lowering in the work, but instead of that 
a very decided raising. The professors of to-day de- 
mand of their students in the Michigan Mining School, 
that which not one of them would have dared to de- 
mand the year before, simply because the burden then 
was too great ; the men could not stand the strain of 
so many subjects as those demanded by the required 
courses. In his own classes he had done work that he 
was ashamed to do, simply because he must do it or 
the men could not by any possibility get along. The 
burden was beyond that of human endurance. The 
student now takes fewer subjects in the same time, 
but does higher and better work. 

If modern languages, together with everything else 
that has been asked for from time to time, are made 
a part of the engineering courses, what opportunity 
is there for sufficient, or even for any, real engineering 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 21 

training ? If engineering studies are necessary for a 
man, it will not do for him, in his engineering course, 
to spend most of his time on modern languages and 
on a variety of unprofessional studies that might be 
interpolated in an elective course. These studies 
should be preparatory. 

The elective system does require of a man that he 
shall take a definite amount of work in order to grad- 
uate ; he must take the same amount that is required of 
him to graduate in a prescribed course, and it must be 
strictly in the line of professional studies. The idea that, 
in an elective system, a man can graduate if he has 
spread himself over any given number of studies with- 
out regard to their relations, is a thing that exists in no 
elective system outside of a kindergarten. It cannot 
exist. No man can study calculus until he has studied 
algebra. The sequence of studies must be followed, 
and the moment this is done, the student finds him- 
self forced, practically, into a proper course of study. 
The elective system is a natural and logical system 
and it reaches the ends that every one has been hoping 
to obtain in the required courses. It removes from 
each student's selected course the special studies in 
which he cannot naturally succeed. 

Professor Galbraith suggested that in that case 
the course agrees with ordinary practice, but contains 
only what are considered necessary subjects. 

Professor Wadsworth agreed to this, saying that 
for each student his selected course became for him a 
fixed course — fixed by his natural tastes and abilities, 
and not fixed by a faculty who knew and could know 
nothing about him. 



22 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

He continued by explaining further the operation of 
the system described. When the professor of hydraulics 
demands of a student a certain amount of study, he 
does not say that the student should have everything 
in the curriculum, but he says that the student who 
comes to him shall take calculus, shall take analytical 
mechanics, shall take physics, shall take chemistry, or 
whatever studies he wishes. The student, when he 
enters upon his course, knows that if he is to take 
hydraulics, he must prepare himself accordingly. If 
he wants metallurgy, the professor has laid down 
the ground previously which he must cover to take 
metallurgy. He cannot graduate under one profes- 
sor and follow only one professor's course, for no three 
professors even can teach enough subjects to give a 
man his degree. The student can, if he wishes to do 
so, on one hand devote his time more particularly to 
metallurgy, chemistry, and geology as applied to min- 
ing ; or, on the other hand, to the civil engineering or 

O 7 

mining engineering sides. Or again, he can give most 
of his time to mechanical engineering or electrical en- 
gineering as applied to mining, and give less to the 
metallurgical and chemical sides. In this way he can 
follow his bent of mind and tastes ; for as the individu- 
ality of the student varies, so he can modify his 
course; but he cannot graduate with an inferior train- 
ing. The training is deeper and more thorough than 
it is in the required courses. The student may not 
take as many studies, but he does better and more 
thorough work. 

There seems to be an inclination to make the criti- 
cism that it is impossible for a student to choose his 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 23 

course wisely for simply one year, and yet he is ordi- 
narily required to choose his life work for four years ; 
that excites no comment ; that is considered perfectly 
proper. If a man can enter a school before he has ever 
had a year's experience in any professional training, 
and select his course for four years, is he incompetent 
to choose it for only one year ? That does not seem 
logical. With a knowledge of the sequence of studies, 
and under the guidance of professors, the speaker be- 
lieved him capable of choosing and choosing well. 

There is a difficulty, and a very serious difficulty, in 
the elective systems in many of the literary colleges ; 
and that difficulty will arise in the engineering col- 
leges unless there is a controlling supervision. That 
difficulty is the introduction of "soft" courses. The 
faculty must be under such authority that the 
moment any member undertakes to bid for students by 
giving "soft" courses, there will be a certainty of his 
going out of the institution. This is absolutely essen- 
tial. No good system of any kind, required or elec- 
tive, is possible unless incompetent professors are 
quickly dispensed with. The president, or whoever is 
in charge of an institution, must have backbone and 
authority enough to say that such men must go. This 
is particularly true with the elective, and ought to be 
made true of every system. 

Professor H. S. Jacoby desired to ask a question as 
to whether there had been in the writer's experience 
an indication of a disposition on the part of any stu- 
dent to choose too one-sided a series of subjects. 

Professor Wadsworth replied that there had been 
none so far, perhaps because the system is guarded 
so that a student can not very well do this. 



24 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

Professor Jacoby said he had a great deal of confi- 
dence in the ability of young America to choose very 
many more things for himself than he is often given 
credit for, and therefore had not much fear in that di- 
rection, and he felt very anxious to ask the question to 
more authoritatively learn the writer's ideas upon it. 

Professor Storm Bull expressed, as his under- 
standing of Professor Wadsworth's practice, that he 
allows the student to say whether he wants to study 
English or anything of that kind. 

Professor Wadsworth explained that, in the elec- 
tive system described, the studies are limited to profes- 
sional studies. English and similar studies are pre- 
paratory. These are not in the engineering curricu- 
lum. With free opportunity for the student to choose 
from modern languages and many other non-profes- 
sional studies, in connection with his engineering work, 
nothing can be done with an elective system and 
obtain a high grade engineering course. The student 
will not be properly an engineering student. He will 
become a classical or a literary student, as that is the 
line of least resistance. 

The system of electives commences in the Michigan 
Mining School at the beginning, i. e., with the fresh- 
man, immediately upon his entrance. 

Professor Bull asked what was required for admis- 
sion, whether either English or foreign languages? 

Professor Wadsworth answered that the require- 
ments for entrance with the former rigid courses had 
been somewhat peculiar. What had been then re- 
quired, and what is required now under the elective 
system, are somewhat different things. The State 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 25 

schools of higher education have a certain relation to 
the high schools ; and there is now required a regularly 
established and satisfactory course of study in the high 
schools, if their diplomas are to be accepted for en- 
trance. A special four years' course of study has been 
laid out by the Michigan Mining School, and recom- 
mended for the high schools to follow if they wish 
their diplomas to be accepted. This course includes 
English literature, the French and German languages, 
physics, political economy, rhetoric, logic, zoology, 
botany, astronomy, trigonometry and various other 
studies, such as in the old days constituted much of 
the old fashioned college course outside of Latin and 
Greek. French and German are carried through the 
four years. Formerly, under a special certificate for 
admission to the Mining School, only the mathematics, 
physics and astronomy were demanded as preparatory 
to the professional studies, somthing the same as is 
similarly the case in a law or a medical school ; that is, 
there was required algebra through quadratic equa- 
tions ; arithmetic with the metric system ; geometry, 
plane, solid and spherical ; physics ; elements of as- 
tronomy, and book-keeping. Book-keeping was re- 
quired simply because in mining work the students 
ought to understand mine accounts. 

At this time, if a student will satisfactorily pass 
an examination at the Mining School in the subjects 
named above, he will be admitted. The situation 
is peculiar ; everywhere in the land, and particu- 
larly in a mining district, there are a great many 
young men who have gone into practical business 
when they w r ere about fifteen or sixteen ; later, when 
they have arrived at the age of eighteen or twenty, or 



26 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

twenty-five, they have a desire to obtain an education. 
The high school tells them, "You must come to us 
four years, then you must go to some other institution 
three or four years to obtain your degree. " This is a 
virtual embargo on these young men. They often 
have great ability ; they work hard and they make 
the best students. Therefore these men are informed 
that if they will come to the Michigan Mining School, 
after a two years' special course in the high school, 
and also after they are nineteen years of age, or else 
will come to the institution and pass its examination 
in the special subjects above named, they will be al- 
lowed to enter. No difficulties have thus far resulted 
to the Mining School from doing this. Experience has 
shown that graduates of the high school do just as well 
in the higher and harder work, and stand the wear 
and tear of an engineering professional training in the 
Mining School, as well as do the graduates of colleges 
and universities ; oftentimes better, for the simple rea- 
son that the majority of the latter have been trained 
to memorize, and do not know how to reason. They 
have committed to memory Greek and Latin grammars 
and works of that kind, so that they have unfitted 
themselves to think over practical questions. The in- 
struction given students at the Michigan Mining School 
incorporates a vast amount of practical work as an ap- 
plication of the principles taught. 

Professor W. F. M. Goss said that if he under- 
stood the paper, it stated that the elective system 
would do three things : It would avoid the overcrowd- 
ing of courses ; it would operate to cut out subjects 
which have no real value, if any such exist ; and it 
would serve as means by which undesirable students 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 27 

may readily be sent away. Since these are all matters 
which under any system of courses are well within the 
control of the faculty, the real claim seems to be that 
the elective system will somehow protect the faculty 
against itself. He thought that the average faculty 
needed no such protection. 

Professor Wadsworth replied that the three things 
mentioned covered a part of the advantages, since ex- 
perience shows that the average faculty fails to accom- 
plish these objects with a required course. 

Professor G. W. Bissell seemed to think it not a 
fair statement that a student who enters a college and 
chooses one of the engineering courses, and who after- 
wards changes his course, loses four years' time. He 
had known instances in which a student entering in 
civil engineering had changed to electrical engineer- 
ing after one year, without sacrificing very much of 
the first year's time or losing very much of the second 
year's time ; the student need not throw away the 
whole four years if he enters in the ordinary w r ay and 
then finds that he has made a mistake and changes to 
some other course. Then as to the elective system, or 
the elective feature of the system discussed by Pro- 
fessor Wadsworth, if the student were to enter any en- 
gineering college and elect, for instance, hydraulic 
engineering, he would follow out much the same course 
of study under the elective system at the Michigan 
School of Mines as he would under a prescribed sys- 
tem in any other engineering college of high standing, 
provided, of course, that the professors in both schools 
have the same ideas — and there w r ould not probably 
be much difference — as to what constitutes a proper 
course of study in hydraulic engineering. It seemed 



28 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

to be not very different from specializing, or taking a 
special engineering course in other institutions of the 
same grade. 

Professor Albert Kingsbury said that he could 
hardly see how this elective system could apply in the 
average college. Indeed, his understanding was that 
Professor Wadsworth does not think it will so apply. 

Professor Wadsworth replied that his position 
was that, while the elective system can be used in 
every college, the special course that had been ar- 
ranged for the Mining School would not, as it then 
stood, apply to the average college ; he would always 
vary it with the special conditions of every institution. 

Professor Kingsbury thought that he could hardly 
make a beginning with an elective system in a college 
such as the one in which he is occupied. The elective 
system which has been discussed appears to be one in 
which the student is lead to suppose that he is doing 
the electing, while in fact the faculty is doing it, and 
the chief gain comes from a mere matter of policy in 
working upon the human nature of the students. 

Professor Wadsworth replied by asking if it is not 
always well to oil the machinery, in order to make it 
run more smoothly and with less friction. 

Professor Kingsbury further explained as his un- 
derstanding of the system that, if the student is to take 
applied mechanics, the professor says to him, "You 
must have the subject of calculus, " and when he at- 
tempts to study the calculus he is told, "You must 
first know algebra/' and when he wishes to study 
algebra the professor says to him, " It is necessary for 
you to know something about arithmetic, " and so on 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 29 

down ; and when all of these are followed down in this 
inverse order and properly fixed, there is a fixed 
course of instruction ; and when provision is made for 
giving the instruction in this course, there must be a 
fixed schedule ; and by the time the fixed schedule is 
established, there is a fixed system just such as most 
colleges are following. 

Professor Wadsworth said that it seemed to him, 
from the discussion, that the trouble is that none of 
the gentlemen, or few of them at any rate, have ever 
used the elective system in engineering work, and con- 
sequently most of the criticisms do not apply to that 
system as it actually is. It should not be supposed 
that the speaker had no knowledge of a required sys- 
tem. In an experience of thirty-three years, during 
the chief portion of the time he had taught in a fixed 
system, and had used optional systems and required 
systems u ad infinitum " almost, so that with most of 
the purposes of the required systems he is familiar. 
From actual experience he would say that the amount 
of time, labor, drudgery and other things that the elec- 
tive system does save, is something that he is unable 
to find words adequate to express, so that his hearers 
will understand it without trying it. This saving is 
an actual fact, speaking from experience, and an ex- 
perience of long years with the different systems. In 
certain schools he would advise keeping the required 
system, and he certainly would be governed always 
by the practical requirements of each special case. He 
would not, in the case of another college, introduce 
any new system until he knew that a change would 
be proper and beneficial to the institution. Most of 
the objections which had been here made, apply to an 



30 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

imaginary something, different /rom a true elective 
system. He would be glad to send to any one the 
catalogue of the Michigan Mining School, as it will 
show, as near as a catalogue can, how the elective sys- 
tem has been arranged there. 

Professor Goss said that he should regret to have it 
inferred from his previous remarks that he questioned 
the value of the work done in the institution with 
which Professor Wadsworth is connected. He could 
readily believe that Professor Wadsworth's plan might 
give good results, and desired simply to question 
whether the reforms which are stated to be the result 
of an adoption of the elective system could not have 
been brought about in some other way. If so, he 
thought that the success of the reforms should not be 
used as an argument to sustain the elective system. 

Professor W. K. Hatt found that his impression 
was not clear relative to one thing. The author said 
that when the student found out the incompetence of 
the instructor he would leave him and go to another 
class. The speaker wished to inquire if the student 
was permitted to control the character of his instruc- 
tion, and, if so, on what features the student based his 
judgment. 

Professor Wadsworth replied that he hardly in- 
tended to convey that idea. It was stated that the 
elective system would show up the incompetence of 
the instructor, because the teacher in Mining Engi- 
neering or in any advanced subject would require that 
the students should have had proper instruction in cal- 
culus, analytic mechanics, mechanism, etc. If stu- 
dents came to that professor prepared properly, it would 
then be discovered that they were well taught ; if im- 



THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 31 

properly instructed, this would also be known as 
quickly ; since, if any professor is to do his work rightly, 
the students must be thoroughly taught in the required 
preparatory subjects when they come to him. In other 
words, every professor naturally insists that the pre- 
paratory work for his classes shall be done as it should 
be, since stopping a student in one subject does not 
cost him a year's time, as it often does in the required 
systems. He must insist on this or it is fatal to his in- 
struction. It is in part this necessary building up 
from the foundation in this way that makes the elec- 
tive system's success. The students themselves are 
enthusiastic over their studies, and they do not wish 
to be under a teacher who does not do good work. 

Further, it has resulted in a decided elevation of the 
moral tone. It has an excellent effect where there is 
an incompetent professor, or one who is exceedingly 
unpopular, or one who does not handle matters in the 
right manner. Instead of a class rebellion, or perhaps 
a petition presented to the faculty or board, accom- 
panied with a statement that the students will leave 
the school, etc., the result is simply a resolve on the 
part of the students not to take the subjects that pro- 
fessor has the next year. It culminates not in a rebel- 
lion, but in the idea "I will not take that subject 
next year. I will go more into the civil engineering 
line, or the metallurgical line, or into some other sub- 
ject that will enable me to avoid the obnoxious 
teacher." This attitude quickly shows itself and the 
trouble is readily diagnosed. The teacher is told by 
a live president what the trouble is, and he is obliged 
to do his work properly or leave the institution. 

Professor Bull inquired if those professors who 



32 THE ELECTIVE SYSTEM. 

offer "snaps," as they call them, become popular at 
once and attract the most students? 

Professor Wadsworth replied that they do not be- 
come popular in engineering colleges, but they do at- 
tract students to lectures in literary colleges, where 
there are usually numerous subjects that require no 
advanced preparation. The question of the literary 
education of a student is entirely different from the 
question of his professional education. The profes- 
sional student inmost cases knows that, unless his work 
is done well, he will not be a competent man in his 
profession after graduating. In the case of a literary 
college many of the students desire only athletics and 
to obtain a polish, consequently they elect anything 
that will give them their polish and degree. Further, 
in a literary college there is usually a much larger 
range of studies from which students can choose. 

Professor M. T. Magruder wished to ask Profes- 
sor Wadsworth if his students are not very much older 
than the average student of the technical colleges ? 

Professor Wadsworth said that the average age 
this year is 23 years ; in former years it had sometimes 
been greater, sometimes less. Certain conditions in 
the Mining School may have raised it compared with 
most other colleges, notably the special students, since 
there have been some who were 56 years of age. 

Professor Kingsbury asked if he understood cor- 
rectly that this system had been in use only one year 
at the Michigan Mining School? 

Professor Wadsworth replied that this was all. 

Professor Kingsbury said that he would be much 
pleased to hear at the next meeting how it works, and 
for several years following. 



DISCUSSIONS. 33 



DISCUSSIONS. 



On the Desirability of Instruction of Undergraduates in the 
Ethics of the Engineering Profession. By Charles Carroll 
Brown, Bloomington, Ills. 

Professor M. E. Wadsworth desired to ask for in- 
formation, what is done in the different institutions 
in that direction? At the institution with which he 
is connected the subject of engineering contracts and 
the question of ethics and principles of engineering is 
taken up in connection with mining engineering and 
with mine management and mine accounts. Is not 
some provision of that kind made in almost all of the 
colleges ? 



The Study of Modern Languages in Engineering Courses. By 
Thomas M. Drown, President of the Lehigh University, 
South Bethlehem, Pa. 

Professor M. E. Wadsworth desired to ask a ques- 
tion : Could not the difficulty that Professor Fuertes 
has spoken of, be done away with by taking the stand 
that is taken in other professions, i. e., that the so- 
called general training studies should be left out of 
the engineering curriculum ? Is it not possible to oc- 
cupy a high plane and say that the engineer is just as 
advanced professionally as anyone else ? Can he not 



34 DISCUSSIONS. 

start his professional training where the other profes- 
sions do ? Instead of asking the incorporation in the 
engineering college course of English Literature and 
numerous other subjects that belong to general cul- 
ture and education, should they not be put into the 
preparatory school where they properly belong ? The 
engineering profession is belittled by starting its edu- 
cation so low. Is it not possible to start it on the same 
plane that other professions select ? In this way it 
would seem that the colleges could have genuine en- 
gineering courses and not be obliged to sacrifice their 
engineering studies to the continual demand for the 
interpolation in the course of literary subjects. 

An Experiment in the Conduct of Field Practice. By Frank 
O. Marvin, Professor of Civil Engineering, University of 
Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. 

Professor M. E. Wadsworth wished to speak about 
a point which does not affect the method of Professor 
Marvin as presented, nor the one Professor Fuertes 
had spoken of, but which simply describes an attempt 
to solve the question of field work in surveying in a 
special situation. Every institution must have its 
own methods. At the Michigan Mining School the 
question that presented itself to the institution at first, 
was some method of taking care of the practical as 
well as of the theoretical work. Also, in the time 
that was allowed the student, to give him an amount 
of experience that would enable him to apply his 
knowledge after graduation. That is, while he might 
know the theory, if he could not adjust his instru- 



DISCUSSIONS. 35 

ments and practically meet the different problems 
likely to come before him, his previous study was 
worthless to him until he had learned later, by prac- 
tice, how to apply it. The question was solved in this 
way : The ordinary summer vacation work is by most 
students taken as a vacation, a general good time ; 
they do the work when they are compelled to, but 
they will not do it well unless absolutely obliged to. 
The failure of the summer school to impart real in- 
struction becomes strongly marked if there happens 
to be in charge of it an instructor who is what stu- 
dents term "a good fellow/' but who has no idea of 
real discipline or systematic instruction. The method 
that the Michigan college employed was this : all of 
the practical work was put in the regular } 7 ear, or 
made part of the regular system. Thus the student's 
work in the summer time is as much a constituent 
part of the school course as it is in the winter term. 
To do this the regular school year was increased to 45 
weeks. In the field surveying, the practical work 
covers various different subjects, like plane surveying, 
topographical work with stadia and plane table, 
geodetic work, railroad surveying, etc. The practical 
work in surveying, exclusive of mining surveying, 
occupies eleven weeks of the year, nine hours a day 
for five days a week, Saturday is taken usually in 
making up for the ranry days, for draughting, for 
making up back work, etc. The extra day is needed 
by many of the students, for while some are rapid 
workers, others are slow. The student in the field,, in 
his surveying, is under the ordinary drill and disci- 
pline of the school, and he is made to work just as a 



36 DISCUSSIONS. 

young surveyor is required to work when he com- 
mences his practice subsequent to graduation. The 
instruction in theoretical surveying has, heretofore, 
been given during the fall and winter terms. That 
has been found to be disadvantageous, owing to the 
fact that the student forgets the theory before he has 
time to apply it. Consequently during the school 
year 1896-7, the theoretical instruction will be given 
in connection with the field work of eleven weeks ; 
that is, the student will hear the lectures and have 
his recitations in the morning at eight o'clock, going 
into the field immediately after, and applying the 
principles directly in practice. 

Professor Wadsworth explained that he believed 
all that Professor Allen said in regard to the value of 
practicing students in surveying during the later por- 
tions of their courses ; but in the case of the Michigan 
Mining School the mining surveying, which is done 
underground in the mines in the spring, requires that 
the plane and railroad surveying preparatory to it shall 
come during the preceding summer. Further, since 
the mining surveying is preliminary to the mining 
engineering, the order in which the three subjects 
naturally fall is as follows: First Year: Plane and 
Railroad Surveying, Principles of Mining; Second 
Year : Mining and Mine Surveying, Theory and Prac- 
tice; Third Year: Mining Engineering, Mine Man- 
agements and Accounts. 



DISCUSSIONS. 37 

Is Not Too Much Time Given to Merely Manual Work in the 
Shops. By W. H. Schtjerman, Dean of Engineering De- 
partment, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. 

Professor M. E. Wadsworth said that it seemed 
to him in listening to Professor Schuerman's paper that 
the ordinary manual training which was referred to 
in it is the work that is done in most schools by boys 
of the age of 15 or 16 ; while the shop practice of en- 
gineering colleges, properly speaking, is more apt to 
be done by young men of more mature age, and is a 
work of a different grade and character. For ordinary 
manual training, the speaker could see no objections 
to the author's recommendations. 

He wished, however, to give the experience of the 
Michigan Mining School in handling shop practice 
for students of engineering, averaging 21 years of age 
and upwards. The speaker did this in the hope of 
bringing out the practical experience of others in like 
work. 

At the Michigan college, the shop practice is con- 
sidered to be of great value and use. The mining 
engineers have many occasions to use their knowledge 
of shopwork in the mines and about their plants. 
The graduates frequently express themselves strongly 
in favor of this work, as something that has proved 
very useful to them in their subsequent practice. 

In order to take the shop practice and receive any 
credit in it at the Michigan college, it is required of 
every student that he shall have previously completed 
the requisite work in geometry, algebra, plane trigo- 
nometry, mechanical drawing, physics, general experi- 
mental chemistry, and the properties of materials. 



38 DISCUSSIONS. 

The time given to the shopwork is eleven weeks 
during the summer term. It occupies nine hours a 
day. Five and one half weeks of the eleven are given 
to practice in wood-working, and five and one 
half weeks to metal-working. The class is divided 
into two sections which alternate ; that is, one half of 
the class works for five and one half weeks in the 
wood shop, while the other half works in the metal 
shop. 

The preliminary practice in learning to handle the 
tools takes only a few days for the average student, 
usually two. After this introductory work, the time 
is spent entirely upon material that is to be used in the 
institution, i. e n upon work which is of practical value. 

The shops are conducted upon the principles in 
vogue in outside shops, and the student is made to 
understand clearly the value of time, material and 
quality of work done. Close record is kept of the 
time spent on each job, and any work which fails to 
pass inspection is promptly rejected. If any of the 
material has been destroyed by defective work, the 
student is required to pay the full value of the stock 
used up by his carelessness. 

Experience shows that the students have a deep in- 
terest in their shop practice, because they feel that they 
are making something that can be used. In this way 
they receive the same mental training that comes in 
actual practice in planning and arranging work for 
their own or for commercial uses. 

Lectures are given to the students upon the work 
and its principles, text-books are studied, and recita- 
tions are required, the same as is the case in the other 
departments of engineering. 



DISCUSSIONS. 39 

After the shop practice has been completed it has 
been found by experience that it is of practical use as 
a preparation for more advanced subjects, like engi- 
neering design, metallurgical design, machine design, 
mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, labora- 
tory practice both in mechanical and electrical engi- 
neering, ore dressing, etc. 

The speaker would be pleased to learn of the prac- 
tice and customs of other institutions, and how their 
instructors handle shop practice. Also whether or 
not the work has been found to be of vital interest and 
of real use to the students. 



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